


Youth Without Youth

by captainkoirk



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abduction, All the time, Character Study, F/F, Girl On The Run, Homelessness, POV Cora Hale, Teen Wolf Rare Pair November, is no one talking about this???, let's talk about cora, lots - Freeform, seriously this fucking eleven year old survived on her own for six years, so jeff davis is a massive tool
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 06:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainkoirk/pseuds/captainkoirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cora had made it a little beyond seventeen before they found her. Kali had been the one to catch her, and Kali was a real wolf, and Cora hated herself and the little, scared wolf inside of her more than anything.</p><p>She couldn't see where the Alphas took her, but it smelled familiar and made her eyes sting, as if with ash, and she cried. A real wolf would not cry, but Cora was no real wolf. She ate other peoples' garbage and coveted her own past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Youth Without Youth

**Author's Note:**

> props to the lovely lovely lovely Dea (lunarcaustic @ao3, tofixtheshadows @tumblr) and Lydia (weavesunlight @ao3, scottinpanties @tumblr) for fleshing this out with me, and shouting about cora hale with me at the odd hours.

Cora likes objects. With belongings, it's easier to belong.

 

Cora remembers Laura's belongings. Tubes of drugstore lipstick traded in for department store brands, expertly applied while Derek grudgingly waited for the bathroom to be free. Her earrings and her CD collection.

 

Cora had been excited to grow up. Cora wanted to learn how to put on lipstick, how to walk like Laura walked. Cora wanted to learn how to drive, wanted to get her period, wanted to go underwear shopping without Mom. Cora wanted all the trappings of a teenager, the cluttered bottles of nail polish on the night stand, the cell phone and the summer job.

 

Cora doesn't remember if she had any inkling of things starting to go wrong. She remembers getting on all fours, her body shifting like it never did before. There was smoke in her lungs and her joints popped out of their sockets with wet noises in a slowed-down stop motion sequence. It had hurt more than anything, but she didn't scream when her jaw unhinged and her vertebrae multiplied. Her tongue had been too big to get the noise out, anyways.

 

Cora did not know she could change completely, like her mother could. But Mom's transformation had always looked more natural than breathing. Cora's felt like an abomination.

 

Cora thought it meant that there was no one else. No Laura whispering to her about her latest boyfriend. No Derek tucking her under his chin.

 

There had been a kind of beautiful laughter outside the house when it burned, the sound heavy boots made, and Cora ran into the preserve and kept running.

 

She had wanted to die, but her new body did not let her. It put her in the backseat, stayed low and hunted only rabbits and the like, keeping far away from whoever the beautiful laughter and the heavy boots had belonged to. Cora's wolf refused to let her back out for a very long time.

 

It made her get angry, first. Anger settled in Cora's gut like a rock, and she's not sure if it's gone even now. Anger pulled her back to earth, and Cora had to relearn how to walk upright, how to use her thumbs.

 

Clothes had been the first order of business. Cora had rooted through the community centre lost and found, stolen shoes from the gym change room. She had been worried someone might recognize her, but when she looked in the mirror under fluorescent lights, she didn't recognize herself.

 

Cora had seen a girl with hollows under the angriest eyes she'd ever seen. Stringy, greasy hair, dirt on her face and under her nails. Clothes that smelled like other peoples' sweat that hung off her body like garbage bags.

 

She took a shower, and she didn't let herself cry. The water was hot, and that was all that mattered. She pumped the liquid soap from the sink and scrubbed her hair and body until she felt raw, focusing on using her hands.

 

Cora hated that soap more than anything. Milky pink, opaque soap that made her hair feel like hay, that left scum on her skin.

 

Cora remembered the soaps and shampoos and conditioners and moisturizers that Laura and Mom would use. Their hair was soft and it shone in the sunlight. It smelled like flowers and fruit. Their skin was smooth.

 

Cora had two feet, and she kept running. She had two feet, sneakers two sizes too big, and a stolen backpack filled with two-ply parks department toilet paper, lost and found socks, and an extra hoodie. She found her way to Los Angeles, using her wolf to figure out who to hitchhike with. Some of the truckers had daughters her age that they lost in divorces. Sometimes they gave her money. Mostly they didn't. Sometimes Cora had to bring out her claws and teeth, had to jump out of moving vehicles.

 

Cora didn't bother with the system. People looking to adopt wanted babies to furnish nurseries for, wanted toddlers too young to remember their tragedies, wanted kids that knew how to smile. To-be parents didn't want eleven year old girls with hollow, angry eyes and monsters under their skin that woke up screaming in the middle of the night.

 

Instead, Cora had hopped from homeless and youth shelters to parks and underpasses. She was thirteen, and she remembers that she had been excited to be a teenager; had been excited to get her period, to have her breasts start to grow. Instead, Cora had felt her lucky that malnourishment meant she wouldn't menstruate much, wouldn't bleed on what few clothes she had, wouldn't have to worry about _two_ times of month. Instead, Cora felt lucky that being able to count her ribs meant she would be mistaken for a boy, that she would be safer.

 

Cora found the library. It was heated in the winter, and had A/C in the summer. She could keep her head down, occupy a corner, get lost in other peoples' worlds. Try and remember her page numbers and come back the next day. School wasn't an option, anymore.

 

Cora remembered how Laura had written her SATs and gotten acceptance letters. Cora remembered how Derek was looking into sports scholarships. Cora remembered how she'd been excited to start high school, in only a few years.

 

School had been an option, but not for Cora to attend. No more putting her tests up on the fridge. No more going to buy poster boards for science projects with Mom. School had been an option for finding food.

 

It had made Cora angrier than anything, though.

 

When the bells rang and lunch was over, Cora would root through the trashcans. There were lunches, half-eaten, single bites taken, or even untouched. Sandwiches tossed because the bread was whole wheat, or because there was mustard. Fresh vegetables in ziplock bags. Whole apples. Brown bagged lunches with parents' handwriting on the front. Love and care Cora didn't have anymore, but Cora could remembered too well.

 

Eating them made her feel sick, but she didn't throw up, couldn't throw up. Fresh produce was a luxury. Deli meat and mold-free bread was a luxury. Cora didn't have the luxury of wasting anything, be it food or the careful handwriting of a parent on a brown paper bag. Cora ate brown bagged lunches, half-eaten, single bites taken, or even untouched, and let her anger become heavier, let her feet drag with its weight.

 

Anger was all she had left. No family, no friends, no home, no collection of nail polish, no cellphone, no summer job, no college plans; just that anger, and her backpack.

 

Winter was the hardest. No school lunches to rely on. Kids were home with their families, eating desserts and receiving objects that Cora might have wanted, what felt like a lifetime ago, what felt like yesterday. Winter was the season of family and gifts, and Cora did not have the luxury of either. Winter was cold, too, but at least Cora felt that her anger could anchor, and she wouldn't be trapped inside her wolf if she shifted.

 

There were no woods to run to in LA, but Cora's wolf was small enough to be mistaken for a coyote. A small, slip of a thing that slunk around with her head and tail low. Cora remembered how Talia's wolf had been larger than life, and had loped through the woods with her head high, tail and tongue wagging. 

 

Cora hated her pathetic wolf; hated lovingly packed lunches tossed away like nothing at all; hated the washed-out strawberry smell of that pink soap in public washrooms. Hate was tangible, though.

 

Cora could not remember her own voice, but she could remember the laughter when her home and family had burned. That was real, that was something. Her birthdays were not. They passed like any other day, with Cora looking for her next meal and a place to pass the time and the night. Cora did not like staying in the same place, if she could help it. Hunters were real, and there were monsters that weren't werewolves, and even if Cora had teeth and claws, she was not strong.

 

Cora was not a wolf. She was a child that tried to stay invisible, lived out of her backpack and bit her nails. They broke so easily, too, marked white from calcium deficiency.

 

Calcium deficiency. Malnourishment. These were words Cora knew when she was eleven, words that jumped out at her in the library. This were words she believed could only ever apply to other people, because Cora had been a wolf, and she had been strong.

 

Cora saw women that were better wolves than she was. They were the ones that loitered downtown, with leather and red lipstick and curled hair and artful sneers. They were the ones in four inch heels and dresses from shop windows, that could walk with their noses in the air, that stopped time with their smiles. They were the ones with buzzed hair and strong arms, with eyes like challenges and legs that could hold up the world. They weren't afraid of anything, and Cora was afraid of everything.

 

Cora promised herself that if she ever had the absurd luxury of _choices_ ever again, she would be all of these women. She would be a real wolf.

 

Cora had made it a little beyond seventeen before they found her. Kali had been the one to catch her, and Kali was a real wolf, and Cora hated herself and the little, scared wolf inside of her more than anything.

 

She couldn't see where the Alphas took her, but it smelled familiar and made her eyes sting, as if with ash, and she cried. A real wolf would not cry, but Cora was no real wolf. She ate other peoples' garbage and coveted her own past.

 

She cried again when they took away her backpack. It hadn't been much, but it had been tangible. A stolen library book Cora hadn't finished; toothpaste and a toothbrush pinched from a drugstore; toilet paper in a ziplock bag; lipgloss she found on the side of the road and wouldn't let herself use.

 

And it made her anger flare. More at herself than anything or anyone else. She stopped crying.


End file.
